In an era of hyper-polarization, Chicago needs a new direction. But not a populist revolution. What it needs is something and someone in the middle. Give me a candidate who understands. Please.

It seems like half the city is running or gearing up to run for mayor in the wake of Rahm Emanuel's surprise decision to hang it up. Toni Preckwinkle and Bill Daley, Gery Chico and Susana Mendoza. Paul Vallas and Lori Lightfoot and Dorothy Brown and Garry McCarthy and at least a dozen more—so many that any local pol here who isn't at least kicking tires is a first-class slacker.

The reason is that all the old coalitions and factional lines have weakened, if not entirely melted away. Unless something changes fast, this race for Chicago CEO augurs to be the most wide open since Richard J. Daley was county clerk, with absolutely no favorite and absolutely everything at stake.

Given that, the horse race—who's in, who's out, who's coming up fast and who's slipping—will occupy most of the media coverage. I'll plead guilty in advance to contributing. But as we get started in this decision about Chicago's future, let me put in a plea for something else: What this voter—and I suspect thousands of others—is looking for isn't the loudest or most eloquent or most strong-willed contender. What I'm looking for is balance, a candidate who realizes that governing a city that not too long ago was dubbed "Beirut on the Lake" requires wisdom, strength, tact and the ability to compromise—not just an Emanuel-esque decisiveness.

A few specifics may underline the point.

Chicago now has a staggering crime problem, one that's concentrated in certain neighborhoods mostly on the South and West sides but that eventually will take a serious toll on even the most prosperous sections of the central area or the North Side. That problem will not be solved with an either/or approach. The answer is not to treat police as so many knights of old who are to be feared and obeyed whatever they do. Nor is it to view gun-toting felons as misunderstood youth who just need a break rather than as the criminals they are.

Police need the respect and cooperation of the city they serve if they are to do their job. With their lives on the line, they need to know that Chicagoans have their backs. But Chicagoans need to know that police will have their backs, that officers will be held to professional standards and disciplined when they violate those standards. For those who have doubts about what I mean, see the Laquan McDonald case.

The same principle—find the reasonable middle—applies to completing the task that Emanuel began to restore fiscal stability to city finances.

No, I don't like taxes any more than anyone else does; I promise you, I pay a ton of them. But budgets need to be balanced, key services need to be funded and the city needs to continue whittling away at its legacy of unfunded pension debt (though it sure would help if labor got a little reasonable about their 3 percent compounded annual COLAs and agreed to a state constitutional amendment to allow some change).

The answer mostly won't be found in Springfield, where the state faces its own fiscal challenges. And it won't be found merely by taxing "rich" people—"rich" being anyone who makes more than I do—though the state does need a graduated income tax. Beyond that, ideas such as passing a commuter tax or restoring the head tax or implementing a "LaSalle Street tax" are just ways to literally pass the buck—they risk hobbling the city's ability to get the jobs its residents need, or won't work or won't pass. Ditto bromides from the political right that there is so much "waste" in government that cutting it will solve all of our problems. There is indeed some bloat. But much of what the right considers waste is what I'd call the social safety net.

In an era of hyper-polarization, of Donald Trump vs. Socialists, Chicago needs a new direction. But not a populist revolution. What it needs is something and someone in the middle. Balance. Give me a candidate who understands. Please.